Pari, thanks for inviting me to your friends list.

Hi Pari,
I don't have any more limericks for you at the moment, but I see you're signed up for Malice. Hope to see you there.

Be still my heart. And my hayfever.

Jen,
Right out my front door? Irises, apple blossoms, apricot blossoms, tulips, forsythias, grape hyacinths, crabapples (both pink and white), daffodils (though they're almost through now).

Of course, the winds are picking up, too. And, allergy sufferers are, well, suffering with the juniper, elm and flowering mulberry.

Okay, Pari - hit me with it. What's blooming already? What do you smell when you walk out your front door into all that beautiful NM sunshine?

Hi Pari,
Thanks for the "chatter." I always read your section of the MWA newsletter, and it was a pleasure to hear from you--even if I'm dying of jealousy that you live in New Mexico (I'm a Coloradan, and miss the Southwest)

Hi Pari, it's so great to see you here. Isn't this a terrific site? Thanks for the kind words at my Chatterwall. I recognized your talent immediately when I read your contest entry all those years ago. Then the ms for Clovis hit my desk and I was hooked. Congrats on the success of your novels. What are you working on now?

Yes--Dear Hrothgar is a black lab, though small at only 55 pounds. Just two, we got him from the pound on Halloween. Appropriate, don't you think!? Labs are the sweetest!

Hi, Pari. Thanks so much for adding me. It's nice to see you here!

Thanks, Robin.
I was wrong about the number; 13 twisters touched down. Amazing.

People's homes are devastated, but not their spirits.

I'm very glad to hear you're okay, Pari. It appeared in this morning's paper here in Central California. Sometimes news filters slowly here. The local paper in my town isn't printed on Sunday, and what comes out in the daily paper is something I've given the slogan of: yesterday's news today. So I had to do a mental tally. When did I last hear from Pari? Is she okay? Then I remembered, oh, yeah. We e-mailed yesterday. Phew.

But that aside, my good wishes to those in the affected areas.

Hey all,
I've gotten a few emails from folks wondering about the tornados in New Mexico. From what I've heard locally, 7 touched down in the eastern part of the state. This area is flat, flat, flat. I have a line in my book CLOVIS where Sasha says, "It's flat, with nothing to stop the view but boredom."

Anyway, one big twister hit a small town called Logan and pretty much decimated it. Another couple hit around Clovis.

Hold a good thought for all of these people. So, far, no one has died . . . that's the real good news.

Ooh - Princess Bride - forgot that one - off to my page to add it! Thanks, Pari!

I'm still trying to figure out how this thing works - so how do I become your 'friend'?

Hey, Pari!
Are we having fun yet? I'm still trying to figure out how the hell this thing works. How do I become one of your friends?

I remember crossing the river. Farmland, cottonwoods. It was a great short cut, as I recall, up from Deming to I-25 to Albuquerque--usually for the Southwest Writers Workshop Conference, which was fantastic when it was at its peak.

It's been a wild day-- I heard about Crimespree this morning and signed up, and already have 39 friends-- all writers whose work I respect.

Oh, J.T., I feel so hip and cool. The love just flows and flows.

Jake,
That's a trip about your protag. Hatch is such a tiny, but quirky place. You do know that the whole town got flooded last summer . . . almost washed away.

Pari - the main character in my next book was born in Hatch. Small world! I just have her come from there (she lives on the Florida panhandle and has since she was ten) but she does remember the pure blue sky, that good bottomland along the river, and the chilis.